


Limbo

by deliriumbubbles



Category: The Venture Bros
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 03:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,717
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16547837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliriumbubbles/pseuds/deliriumbubbles
Summary: It’s hard to get that Arachnid Research Lab rented out, no one is really sure why. But one summer, a family moves in, and the children start seeing glimpses of the Venture family secrets.





	Limbo

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Haunted Prompts: "This house is ours."

The boy’s hair was red, and a dusting of freckles spilled over his nose and cheeks. He was very, very pale, and he seemed to be taking short, ineffectual breaths.

 

Adrian didn’t move. She couldn’t move. This was the first time that she’d seen him, even though her little brother Jack had woken up for the past two nights and rushed to her bedroom, eye full of tears and wailing about the red-headed boy that was in his room. His tales had been wild, and each night told of something different for the boy. The first night, Jack claimed the boy had just been drowned and was still dripping water. The next, Jack said the boy had been crying blood, and there was the sound of a crying child in his room.

 

Adrian hadn’t believed Jack. Even though that first night there had been water all over the floor. It was nightmare, clearly. Something he’d seen from TV that had stuck in his unconscious and was working its way in the worst way possible.

 

Tonight, the boy just stared at her, struggling for breath, and Adrian couldn’t make herself move. After two nights, apparently the ghost had given itself up and made his way towards her room.

 

“What do you want?” Adrian asked.

 

“Eeeeh, eeeeh, eeeeeh,” the red-headed boy wheezed. He put his hands to his throat, grasping, clawing, and then threw them both in front of him like he was trying to push something away.

 

Such a small, ineffectual ghost. He looked younger than her. Maybe twelve, and he seemed about as scared as she was. Her mind kept edging her toward the idea that this was just some dumb prank by the local kids. Hazing the new family.

 

But they were in the middle of nowhere. Their family had moved into this creepy mountain compound so her parents could work on putting out their next book. The odd couple who lived in the main house had never mentioned there were kids around here. Her mom had told Adrian she would have to tough it out and focus on her studies while they were there, and then maybe, her mother could take them out to town on weekends.

 

In the end, it wasn’t the promises of every other adult that there were no children around that convinced Adrian something truly preternatural was happening. It was the sheer mundanity of a kid just _standing_ there, overly frightened, confused, and dead.

 

“What do you want?” she asked again. She moved slowly, putting one foot onto the ground, and then the other. She kept her eyes on him, in case he disappeared or suddenly turned into something much less benign.

 

He didn’t. He started to blink, like he was slowly starting to fall asleep. His hand clawed hopelessly over his mouth and throat. Then, he flickered and disappeared.

 

Adrian continued to stare at the spot he’d left, then looked around the room, like he might suddenly reappear.

 

What happened then was worse. A child’s voice, high and tremulous, echoed through the room:

 

**_“Where am I?”_ **

****

Heart in her ears, Adrian stared in disbelief. A second, slightly lower voice, cried:

 

**_“This is_** our ** _house!”_**

 

For the first time since she was six, Adrian fled to her parents’ bedroom.

 

* * *

 

**_“Who are you?”_ **

****

The high, wobbly voice woke Adrian from her sleep. Her eyes slowly adjusted, and there he was again, at the foot of her bed. Through the moonlight seeping through the window, she could make out trickles running down his cheeks. As she sat up, preparing to comfort him (that had been her plan all day, comfort the ghost and make it go away), she realized those weren’t tears. They were too thick to be water. It was _blood_. His lips and chin were smeared, and he coughed, choking on it.

 

The wails rose around her. Jack had said it was the sound of a kid crying, but Adrian recognized how young the cries were. Toddlers, at the oldest, maybe even babies. It made no sense.

 

**_“W-who are you?”_ **

****

“I’m Adrian Santos. We just moved here. You met my little brother, Jack.”

 

**_“This house is ours.”_ **

****

Adrian felt ice water gushing through her veins. “You a-and the other kids?”

 

**_“What?”_** The boy blinked slowly, then began coughing again. He clutched his stomach and doubled over onto the floor.

 

“I’m sorry.” Adrian got up to go help him but hesitated. She didn’t want to know what it would be like to touch him. “Did something happen to you? To you and the other children? Are they here too?”

 

**_“He- he’s resting,”_** the boy managed. He drew in one more pained breath and then stopped moving. His eyes, young and brown and too lined for his age, stared blankly at the ceiling.

 

Adrian reached out instinctively. Some part of her wanted to help him. When her fingers brushed against him, though, they simply met cold air. And he disappeared.

 

* * *

 

Adrian spent the day prowling around the area of the compound they were allowed to be in. That big blond monster had warned them on the first day that if they stepped on the wrong part of the lawn, they would probably get blown up. So she watched her step and likewise kept Jack close. She hadn’t seen any sign of children here, though.

 

There had been a little dog romping around. He’d been pretty happy to see Jack, and they’d played together. The skinny, weird hermit that lived with the big blond guy had said the dog’s name was Scamp. It was all so normal and human and boring. That made the things she and her brother had seen at night worse, somehow.

 

That night, Adrian snuck into Jack’s room after their parents had checked on him and put her blankets down next to his bed.

 

**_“Where are we?”_ **

****

Adrian hadn’t even gone to sleep. She had just lain there, awake, worrying, as she watched her brother curled up with his purple stuffed elephant. Jack hadn’t woken up yet, and she hoped that he wouldn’t.

 

**_“Where are we? Where am I?”_ **

****

Adrian sat up and inched just a bit closer, hoping to avoid the boy deteriorating before she could learn more. The kid was cycling, or something. Tonight he dripped water. She could see the blue around his lips, creeping over his pale skin.

 

“We’re on the Venture Compound. Dad said this used to be the place they researched spiders,” Adrian said.

 

**_“Hank? Where are we? Hank?”_ **

****

Jack let out a whimper, and Adrian moved quickly to his side.

 

“It’s okay, buddy. He doesn’t want to hurt us. He’s just scared.”

 

Jack just started to cry, burying his face into Adrian’s nightgown.

 

“Who’s Hank?” Adrian asked quietly.

 

**_“Get back here!”_** yelled a deeper voice.

 

The boy started to shudder. His hands began their futile motions at his throat once more, and he looked around himself in a panic.

 

**_“The shoot isn’t working! Hank, I can’t breathe!”_ **

 

Adrian held Jack tightly as the boy seemed to light up in front of her before vanishing once more.

 

* * *

 

The boy didn’t return the next night. Nor the night after that. Just as suddenly as he’d appeared, he was gone. After a week had passed, and everything started to fall into a daily pattern of boring followed by boring, Adrian found herself hoping to find a little more of the supernatural to investigate. Unfortunately, there was nothing, and she spend a lot of her time watching TV or reading lab notes about spiders.

 

One morning, her mother told her they’d gotten special permission to use the pool, and Adrian was eternally grateful for the break from monotony.

 

“Hello!” called a familiar voice.

 

Adrian looked up to see a blond boy in jeans and a white t-shirt grinning goofily at her.

 

“Hi, there.” Adrian put the suntan lotion and waved. “I’m Adrian. This is Jack.”

 

“Hey, Jack!” The boy grabbed a chair and sat on it backwards. His face was lit up like it was Christmas or something. “Wow, it’s so cool to have kids around here. How did you even get here?”

 

“We live in the spider house,” Jack said.

 

Adrian pointed to where the house was.

 

“Ohhh, cool. Pop never rents that place out! I dunno why.” The boy jerked his thumb behind himself. “This is _our_ house!”

 

Adrian nodded slowly. Tingles were beginning to run up her spine. “Do you ever see anything… strange happen around here?”

 

“Pfft. And how. What do you wanna hear about? Oh, I’m Hank, by the way.”

 

Adrian pulled Jack toward her. “Hank?”

 

“Yeah. Well, Henry Allen Venture. The guy losing his hair is my dad.”

 

“He never said he had a son.”

 

Hank rolled his eyes. “Sounds like Pop. You wanna swim?”

 

“I was going to do a few laps, but I have to watch Jack,” Adrian explained. Well, he seemed friendly enough. Maybe the ghost just knew him because he lived on the compound.

 

“You don’t have’ta watch me! I’m not a baby!” Jack protested.

 

“You’re a big man. Who I don’t want to see drown.”

 

Jack’s eyes got big, no doubt thinking about that boy dripping at the foot of his bed.

 

“You know what I mean.” Adrian stroked his hair. “Let’s get these floaties on you, hm?”

 

In spite of being on the lips of the damned, Hank didn’t seem to be a bad kid. He was younger than her, but he seemed more interested in splashing around and talking about his “adventures” (which mostly sounded made up) than acting like a typical middle-school boy, so that was okay.

 

“Oh, hey!” Hank turned to wave at the doors into the house, and Adrian looked up, expecting Hank’s father or his big boyfriend.

 

It was not one of them.

 

It was the red-haired boy. In the flesh. Smiling and waving.

 

Jack started to scream, and even though she didn’t intend to or even hear it, she started to scream as well. She grabbed her brother, scrambled out of the pool with him, and ran all the way back to the house.

 

Hank stared after her and then swam up to the side of the pool and rested his arms on the side.

 

“Smooooooth,” he said.

 

Dean stared after her. “Who was that? What did I say?”

**Author's Note:**

> The requester asked for the prompt to be written for Dean, but I snuck Hank in. I figured, in between resurrections, Hank is the more chill ghost, while Dean wanders and makes a nuisance of himself. He's rarely around for long, because usually, they get cloned again pretty quickly, but sometimes there are gaps. I imagine that walkabout Rusty took between S1 and S2 produced a lot of ghostly shenanigans.


End file.
